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Tag: confidentiality

Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers, among the possible candidates for the next CIA director, leaked classified information about the hunt for Osama bin Laden to filmmakers of an acclaimed movie, Pentagon investigators have concluded, McClatchy Newspapers reports.

The Justice Department, however, has declined to pursue criminal prosecution since receiving the case in September, McClatchy reported, citing two senior U.S. officials.

Investigators with the Pentagon’s Inspector General’s Office said Vickers disclosed to filmmakers of “Zero Dark Thirty” the name of a U.S. Special Operations Command officer involved in planning the May 2011 raid on bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan.

Revealing classified information is a crime.

Vickers is among the possible candidates to replace retired Army Gen. David Petraeus as CIA director.

“Mike Vickers is an outstanding defense and intelligence professional and is well respected inside the Department of Defense and the intelligence community,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said.

A former FBI agent who passed on confidential information to a friend about an ongoing federal investigation in New Jersey was sentenced Tuesday to four years of probation, the Washington Post reports.

Ivan Stanchev, 43, delivered information about a criminal probe in Newark to a friend who apparently was curious about an undercover operation, the Washington Post reported.

Among the information were four telephone numbers and the names of people linked to the probe, the Post wrote.

The information “was in no way classified and did not involve national security,” Stanchev’s attorney said.